1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to a method and apparatus relating to ensuring an authenticated device is tamper proof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hand-held devices, such as, calculators, are often used in the educational environment. As a result, these devices are typically used in a classroom environment or even a testing environment to take some of the standardized state-level tests.
Students may use functionalities offered by such hand-held devices during exam in a way that jeopardizes the exam outcome. For example, students may utilize stored equations or communicate with other calculators in their network to retrieve restricted information. Hence, such functionalities may provide a tool for a student to cheat during an exam.
As a result, hand-held devices may be set to press-to-test (PTT) mode. The press-to-test mode allows a teacher to restrict the functionalities are should not be used on an exam. Hence, the teacher is able to utilize such hand-held device without being concerned that the students are cheating by utilizing unauthorized functions of the device. However, the current devices do not provide a tool that would ensure that the students would not be able to reset or change the mode of the hand-held device in a way that would make the restricted functionalities available.
Therefore, there is a need for a tamper-proof hand-held device that offers a restrictive mode and that ensures that only an authorized person is capable of activating the restrictive functionality or resetting the hand-held device.